Stouffville, Ontario
About Others
When I was in Mayapura, India, I saw a piece of myself on
someone's table. I'll clarify. An artist had a booth where he was displaying
his wares—copies of painted portraits of bhakti-yogis Well, I was in that pile of twenty or
so. I picked one up off of his display
table, to have a look.
That's me, alright, I thought, and reasoned
within. Actually, I was separated from
the portrait, just as my body is separated from my soul. My body, a temporal object, is what some
identify as me. It's fallacious, at
best. The resemblance of the portrait to
my physical self was striking.
Now, lets put me aside—at least the body—and consider
others.
I sent a message to my sister, Connie, whose birthday is
today. She's a year and a half my
junior. I talked to a woman who had all kinds of questions about life, about
the deities, about destiny. She was a
visitor who had her questions answered.
She went away with a Gita and some cake prasadam. She was happy. There were more ‘others’. In my brief walk, I greeted all the
pedestrians who passed by me. Our
neighbours, basically. It left a good
feeling.
Then in the late afternoon, Paripoorna, a South Indian
practitioner, drove me from the park where I was strolling, to Stouffville,
where I met a new but growing community, with lots of kids. I talked of my early days when I became a
monk. I believe that although I spoke
somewhat about myself, my intent was to enthuse them toward self-improvement.
May the Source be with you!
2 km
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